


All's Fair

by peaxhtree



Category: Hogan's Heroes (TV 1965)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst and Humor, Enemies to friends to something, F/M, M/M, Rule 63, more than typical canon violence, vague smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:15:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaxhtree/pseuds/peaxhtree
Summary: Colonel Robin Hogan becomes the bane of Klink's existence.[au where the heroes are women, and Klink is still Klink]
Relationships: Robert Hogan/Wilhelm Klink
Comments: 11
Kudos: 45





	All's Fair

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in late 2013, and then it sat until about a week ago, when I wrote the rest of it in a one-week frenzy. idk.
> 
> Warning for implied torture, and Hochstetter and idk, nazis in general?

At first Klink takes it as an insult. To be kommandant of a Luftstalag for _women_ prisoners of war is low grade indeed — he is a colonel, decorated from the Great War!

However, his opinion on the matter drastically changes when the general offers the alternative of a swift train ride to the Russian Front.

Reconsidered, looking after a group of Allied women soldiers is much more favorable then freezing to death and being shot at by angry Russians. Klink smiles when he thinks of how he will be the envy of all the other officers. Constantly being around women will be nice, since in wartime the company of _fräuleins_ are a scarcity (even if these women _are_ the enemy). He convinces himself that he will be much safer, because it’s not like the women would riot or anything else dangerous.

How difficult could it be?

Colonel Robin Hogan quickly becomes the bane of Klink’s existence.

Hogan (only once Klink made the mistake of calling her by her given name — she had snapped back with, “We aren’t that familiar, Kommandant,” and Klink was cowed into obeying) is woman with a rank that confuses most and offends many. She wears the same uniform as the men who serve in the US Air Force — brown trousers and tan button up shirt, and a soft leather jacket and brown hat that she’s hardly seen without. She’s tall and lean and the uniform looks good on her, looks like it belongs on her. Perhaps it’s the confidence that makes it work.

Klink’s direct orders are to find out what she knows, but just like all the other prisoners, he obtains no information from Hogan, and she happens to be more stubborn than the rest. All Klink knows for certain is that Hogan is charming and arrogant, is insanely clever when she wants to be, and has a simple beauty that she flaunts unabashedly when it pleases her — she’s also dangerously aware of all this, and she uses it to her benefit.

She often comes to Klink alone in his office, her words going faster than Klink can understand them, and by the time she’s gone he can’t help but feel a little bit like he’s been taken advantage of somehow. When he mentions this to her, she gives him that _look,_ the one where she feigns innocence — her head tilted to the side, eyebrows knitted together, a half grin that indicates that she thinks he’s crazy, and he gets so turned around that he isn’t sure which way is up and he doesn’t have time to sort it out before she throws him a lax salute and leaves his office.

Other times, her charades are as sloppy as her posture. Klink gets a thrill when he catches the American in the act of trying to bamboozle him, and he has to remind her _no one has ever escaped from Stalag 13_. However, it seems as though his success is always short-lived. The scales tip back and there’s an explosion somewhere and the Gestapo accuses but can never prove anything, and when Klink defends himself with his “no escape” record, General Burkhalter reminds him that it shouldn’t count because in his words, “Women enjoy being held captive by men — even by ones like you, Klink!”

Klink isn’t one to disagree with authority, but it’s hard for him to imagine Hogan enjoying being held captive by anyone.

To Klink’s irritation, Hogan is sitting outside of his office when he walks in, with one of her long legs crossed over the other. Before Klink has even finished the brushing the snow off his shoulders, Hogan is standing at attention in front of him.

“Sir, I request permission to—”

“Denied,” Klink says, bypassing her and walking into his office. Despite being uninvited, Hogan follows behind him. Klink sighs and shuts the door behind her. He can never keep her at bay for too long.

He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t give her the _satisfaction_ of his attention until he’s hung his coat up and is sitting behind his desk. When he does glance up at her, she’s obviously impatient, standing with her arms crossed.

“How can I help you?” Klink asks, and he immediately cringes; he sounds more like a waiter asking for a dinner order than a commander speaking to his senior POW officer.

Hogan takes off her cap and tosses it on his desk. Klink reaches across his desk and moves it off a stack of papers — she _always_ does that. If anything, Hogan really knows how to grind on someone’s nerves.

Hogan runs a hand through her short dark hair before addressing him. “Well, Kommandant, me and gals were thinking of doing a performance tomorrow night in the officer’s hall,” Hogan says. “It’s a melody of songs from _Oklahoma!_ I’m going to be Curly, and Carter is going to be my Laurey.”

He’s heard of the American Broadway play — a western. The image of Hogan in a cowboy hat makes the ends of his mouth turn up before he forces them down again. “Permission granted.”

“Great! They’re going to be so glad. So, we’ll use the hall tonight for rehearsal and—”

“No,” Klink says, and before Hogan can protest he continues, “General Burkhalter is having a very important meeting in there tonight.”

Hogan scoffs. “But we have to rehearse where we are going to perform! The acoustics in the barracks are all wrong. You should know that being a musical man yourself,” she says, gesturing to him with one hand.

“Yes, but—” Klink begins, but is cut off by Hogan lowering her voice an octave and singing a horrible rendition of what could hardly be called a song.

“ _Oh, what a beautiful mornin’, oh what a beautiful day —_ see? Just awful. And Newkirk is even worse. She has that accent to contend with.” She pauses, and there’s that lopsided grin and dimple in her cheek. “It would mean the world to us, Colonel.”

“Well,” he says, and just like that he relents. “You can use it today, but you must be out before five and nowhere near it before everyone arrives for that meeting.” He wags a finger at her in warning for greater effect.

She smiles like the cat that’s got the cream. “We won’t be there when the krauts roll in, that I can promise you.” She picks up her cap and puts it on. “I’ll save you a place front row center tomorrow night.”

“ _Ja,_ sure,” Klink says, waving his hand dismissively. His attention is already moving on from Hogan and her off-key singing and onto the stack of paperwork that awaits him. He’s about to dismiss her until she pulls a cigar out of her jacket pocket. Klink doesn’t have to inspect it closely to know that it’s one of _his_ cigars — she must have snatched it while he wasn’t paying attention. He needs to be more careful around her.

“Got a light?” Hogan asks, muffled, with it between her lips.

Begrudgingly, Klink takes the lighter from his drawer and flicks the flame on. He’s never known a woman to smoke cigars. He thinks he should find it unattractive, but when she leans over the desk to the lighter, close enough for him to the smell perfume that he knows she can’t get from Red Cross packages. She takes one, two puffs and exhales smoke before standing upright, and Klink gets a twisty feeling in his lower stomach.

“ _Danke_ ,” Hogan says, her voice horse, and salutes.

Klink salutes back, bringing his hand down clinched into a fist. Damn that woman.

Klink recognizes that Hogan is great commander, no matter her gender. She’s good to her fellow prisoners and she displays excellent leadership, and when they’ve spoken about their experiences, she obviously knows a lot about flying. Klink treats her with equal respect that he would give any other officer…

…but it becomes his obsession to know how Hogan came to earn such a high rank in the American Air Force. Her dossier has no information regarding it and every time he asks her, she tells a ridiculous story complete with a wide grin that causes her eyes to squint — _I saved President Roosevelt’s daughter, and that’s when I was given my eagles,_ was last Monday’s tale, and Hogan was so convincing that Klink would’ve believed her if her story didn’t change every time she tells it.

“Maybe she…you know,” Schultz suggests, once, and Klink supposes his expression must show his cluelessness to Schultz’s meaning because the sergeant continues on with a devilish look in his eyes. “Maybe Colonel Hogan did some favors for some of the Air Force big-shots. Favors that require _lying down._ ”

“Schultz, I don’t know what—oh.” Klink understands the implication, and he wishes that he could unthink it, but his mind works fast and conjures up images on an unchecked train of thought. He thinks of what Hogan would look like underneath her uniform. He wonders if she would carefully unbutton her shirt, prolonging every moment, or would she tear it off in haste to rush to the intimacy? He imagines her skin flushed, her gasping and moaning beneath him, the taste of her skin, her skin against his—

No, he finds that he cannot think of Hogan in that way.

“You’re speaking about a _colonel_ , mind yourself,” Klink reprimands, and he doesn’t know if it’s more to Schultz or to himself. Schultz gives a _jawohl_ and laughs to himself as he shuts Klink’s office door.

Even though he doesn’t see Hogan again until the evening roll call, she distracts him all day long.

The top secret meeting with General Burkhalter goes on without a hitch, and Klink gets told that he did a good job (in reality, the General says to him, “I’m astounded that you didn’t manage this mess it up,” and that’s close enough to a compliment for Klink). He’s giddy when he wakes the next morning, and even the lingering thoughts of Hogan can’t sour his mood. It was Schultz’s fault anyway that he put those vulgar thoughts in his mind in the first place. And it’s not like he can help it. He can’t deny acknowledging good looks when he sees them — because he admits that he’s looked at Hogan when she wasn’t looking. As long as there’s no fraternization, then nobody is really harmed, are they not?

He assures himself this is the truth, and he moves on with the rest of his day.

Regardless, he dreads going to see the prisoners’ performance that evening. He thinks of skipping it, but he feels like trash when he thinks of disappointing Hogan, so at the last moment he changes his mind, bolting out of his quarters with his riding crop tucked underneath his arm.

As he passes his garden, he bends down and picks a single dandelion from his garden, and gently places it in his inner coat pocket.

The practice the day before must have helped, because the medley of songs isn’t as horrible as Hogan had made it out to be. Klink enjoys it, despite a very confusing ballet sequence. In his opinion, Hogan is the best, but he would never tell her that. However, it isn’t until Newkirk sings a song about being a _girl who can’t say no_ and the guards and other prisoners get riled up that Klink second guesses his decision to let them have this privilege.

“Well?” Hogan asks him afterward. Klink takes in Hogan’s ridiculous appearance: a red plaid shirt tucked into a pair of denims, chaps, and a tan cowboy hat that she’s wearing pushed back in the same way that she wears her usual cap. It’s a sight to see, and he wishes that he had a camera to capture this moment.

“Fair,” Klink says. Then, in what only he can describe as a fit of insanity, he reaches in his jacket and hands Hogan the crushed flower.

Hogan spies it as he takes it from him, as if it were a stick of dynamite, or perhaps something with intentions that he did not mean. “Kommandant?”

He feels a blush creep up from his neck. “Isn’t it tradition to give someone flowers after a performance?”

For a moment Hogan looks at Klink, contemplative, like she’s trying to peer at his soul and know him. But it only lasts for a moment before she breaks into a wide smile, one of the ones that don’t quite reach her eyes.

“Gee, thanks Colonel! You’re too kind.”

“What’s that for?”

LeBeau, the petite French prisoner, also dressed in Western American garb, appears at Hogan’s side and shoving a folded paper in her colonel’s hand. Klink sighs; she has a habit of showing up and being when least expected, or wanted.

Hogan glances at the paper before nodding at LeBeau and tucking it into the pocket of her jeans. Klink opens his mouth to ask what she’s hiding, but Hogan speaks first, saying, “The Kommandant gave me this flower because my performance was so spiffy.”

To Klink’s dismay, a crowd quickly gathers around them. “Hey, why didn’t I get a flower?” Carter asks, pushing a strand of her messy dirty blond hair behind her ear. “Didn’t I do a good job?”

“Uh…” Klink flounders for a response, and glances to Hogan for help, as he often does. Hogan is no help though; her smile continues to grow.

“He didn’t want to tell you, but your singing is ruddy awful,” Newkirk chimes in.

“You didn’t get a flower either.”

“I don’t want no flower from some kraut.” The Englander tilts her head back, blue eyes shining. “You turnin’ on us Andrea?”

“No! I just thought it would be nice to be thought of, that’s all!”

The argument continues, and Klink is out of his depth amongst the bickering women, and it isn’t until Schultz yells, “Please stop it, ladies! _Ladies!”_ before it breaks up.

After he orders the prisoners back to their barracks, Klink searches the crowd for Hogan, but she’s already gone.

“Me?” Hogan exclaims. “I’m just an innocent and defenseless woman. I don’t know anything about making a munitions factory explode.”

Hochstetter glares at Hogan, and then looks her up and down, eyes travelling too slowly. “You’re anything but innocent.”

Klink notices how Hogan only twitches slightly — clenching her teeth and a hand curling into a fist before relaxing again.

“You can’t prove it,” says Hogan. “I was in camp all evening.”

“I don’t need to prove it, I _know_ —”

“If you have no proof,” Klink begins, “then you have no reason to bother my prisoner for any longer.”

Hochstetter turns to Klink and he has that _look_ that makes him feel like he’s losing. Hochstetter grins, and then switches to German to speak — “ _Your_ prisoner? That’s rather possessive. Do you want her?”

Klink sneaks a glance to Hogan — he knows she understands a little of German, but he doesn’t know how much. He hopes not enough to know what was said. She has a curious expression, and is looking between the two men, so he thinks she doesn’t know, thank goodness.

Klink responds in German as well. “I don’t know what you’re talking about? Do I want her to stay at this stalag? I suppose—”

“Klink! You know what I’m speaking of. Do you want her in your bed?” Hochstetter asks. “She is not the most attractive woman, but she is a woman. It would be a victory just to take her. I’d like to tie her down and—”

“No,” Klink says, in English. He clears his throat. “Please leave, or do I have to call General Bulkhaulter to tell him you’re harassing my prisoners?”

It seems as though Hochstetter is going to have a conniption, but knowing he has nothing on Hogan or Klink (as he never does) he turns back to Klink and shouts, “Bah!” and storming out of the office, slamming the door so hard the framed photos on the wall rattle.

Klink feels like he should apologize for what was said, but Hogan doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want her to know. She already has to worry about by being a prisoner of war. He doesn’t want her to worry about…that.

There’s another beat of silence and then Hogan mutters, “I thought he was going explode like that munitions factory.”

He has to force himself to laugh. At times, Hogan feels more dangerous than in the frontline of fire.

The first rule of Stalag 13 is: under no circumstances, do not let any prisoners escape.

The second rule: no hanky-panky with the prisoners.

A few men have tempted that rule, unable to keep their hands to themselves, which has been dealt with swift punishment and a transfer. Klink isn’t too concerned because the women can take care of themselves, but he is supposed to take care of them.

But it doesn’t mean he can’t look.

And oh, does he _look_.

Of course he notices that Hogan is a woman. He’d be blind if he didn’t. He thinks of her as an officer first, but she is still a woman. A woman with pretty eyelashes and full lips and a curvy backside. Other women in the camp are attractive, but Hogan is by far his favorite to look at. At first, he convinces himself he does it because it’s his mission to figure out secrets she knows because she _is_ the enemy, but the longer he knows her, the less he cares about her intentions and more about her, Robin.

“Do you have a man waiting for you back home?” he asks her a year into knowing her, because he _has_ to know. He knows she isn’t married, and he knows she likes men — he’s caught her necking with a civilian who was visiting the camp, and then he had to look at the kissed-bruise on her neck for a week.

“Several,” Hogan replies, blasé. “I’m not interested in any of them, but I don’t want to break their hearts quite yet. I’m not interested in marriage, anyway. I’m too committed to my job.”

Klink doesn’t think she would be satisfied with anyone — she isn’t to be tied down, and trapped.

It’s a particularly warm summer day when Klink nearly dies.

He comes out of his quarters and there’s Hogan, working on his car, and dressed like a whore.

Okay, she’s wearing trousers and boots and a white undershirt and it’s all still very conservative, but it’s the most skin he has seen of hers. Her arms are bare — she’s rolled up the sleeves — and there’s a dip in the front of her shirt that displays her collarbone and top of her chest. The shirt clings enough that he can see the shape of her breasts, which she normally keeps hidden away under her uniform and jacket. They’re small but lovely. Hers.

She hasn’t noticed he’s there yet, so he allows himself to look at her further. As she works, the muscles in her arm flex. She’s strong — he’s known that. Her trousers hang on her waist. She’s too skinny. She needs to eat more. But then he remembers where they are.

Hogan glances up and of all horrible things, she smiles at him, calls him over. “Hey!”

On unsteady feet, Klink walks to her. He notices the others are there — Schultz is standing guard, Kinchloe glances up for a moment but she goes back to fiddling with something inside the car, and Newkirk makes a _humph_ sound and wipes her brow before announcing she’s going off for a smoke.

“What’s wrong with the car?” Klink asks Hogan. Now that he’s close, he sees more. Too much. The sheen of sweat on her skin and a grease stain on her cheek that he’s dying to wipe clean.

She lets out a low whistle. “The carburetor is busted. It’s a good thing we checked it out or else you’d have been blown to bits next time you took a drive into town!”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” He’s often uncertain of the legitimacy of what Hogan says, but she insists—

“Really! It’s right here, see,” she says, and she leans over the engine and points to something that Klink pretends to know what it is. He leans down too and she’s talking and talking and Klink doesn’t understand all the words. He looks up at her and he really shouldn’t have, because he has a perfect view down her shirt.

His mouth goes dry. He sees the round of her breasts and her sensible bra and the chain of her dog tags.

It’s been too long since he’s been with a woman.

“ _Kommandant?_ ”

Klink meets Hogan’s eyes and her mouth is slightly parted and her brows are raised and oh no, she knows he was looking—

He bolts upright so fast he bangs his head on the hood of the car.

Hogan doesn’t bother to stifle a laugh.

“I’ll make sure your car is fixed,” she says, still chuckling, but thankfully that’s _all_ she says.

Schultz has something to say, of course, as he walks with him across camp. “It’s not nice to ogle at Colonel Hogan that way, she is an officer and actually, she can be very frightening—”

“I did not _ogle_.” Klink stops and turns to speak to him directly. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching them?”

“Oh, right—” and Schultz hurries back to his post.

Klink busies himself the rest of the day so he doesn’t have to go near where Hogan and her crew are working on his car. He doesn’t want to see her. But he obviously should have — that evening his car breaks down, anyway, and then he’s robbed at gunpoint. When he finally gets back to camp hours later, Hogan is outside her barracks, waiting for him. She says that it isn’t her fault his car stalled — she can only fix so much.

He gets an invite to an officer’s club he’s never been to. It’s a letter from a scientist, saying he has something to give him to pass onto higher channels, and he promises he will make it worth his while. It has been a very stressful week — a surprise inspection by the Gestapo, a prisoner attempted escape, Hogan made him look like a fool in front a visiting General — so Klink thinks deserves a nice evening.

Schultz drives him into town and goes inside the venue with him. It’s not what he expected. Dark, cramped, and there are too many SS officers. He wants to turn around and leave, but he agreed to meet with someone he’s already forgotten the name of.

He doesn’t know why he’s nervous. He isn’t doing anything wrong. It’s just a meeting. He has meetings all the time.

He has a drink to calm his nerves, and then another, and then the scientist finds him. It’s a very brief meeting. He shoves an envelope into Klink’s pocket and tells him that it contains chemical formulas to help win the war and be sure to get it to Burkhalter.

Klink can do that. Be a mule. Go to point A to point B.

The scientist claps him on the back and tells him that he’s a hero to the fatherland and heils. The scientist stares at Klink until he lazily throws his hand up.

He wants to vomit.

He drinks more.

He’s lost track of time when woman at the bar catches his eye. She has long blonde hair and dark eyes and is wearing a small dress that hardly goes to her knees, red lipstick, and too much make-up. It might be the alcohol but she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

Their gazes meet. He’s paralyzed with fear for a moment, but he’s drunk enough and he feels terrible enough about himself to try.

He waves. She smiles coyly at him and waves back.

Schultz grabs his arm when he goes to talk to her.

“You mustn’t,” Schultz says. “She’s not a lady you should talk to.”

Klink shakes him off. “I don’t plan to _talk_ much with her.” He takes a step, sways, but continues on.

Schultz stops him again.

“Please don’t,” he says, his voice becoming a whine. “ _Please_ do not fraternize with the lady! There are so many other ladies here, just please do not pick that one—”

“I am your commanding officer, and I will do what I want,” says Klink, and he goes over to the lady.

“Hi.” Klink leans on the counter, partly to appear casual, partly because the room is spinning ever so slightly. She is as attractive up close as she was from a distance. “What’s someone pretty like you doing in a place like this?”

“Oh, you know,” she replies, and Klink swears she looks familiar. Maybe he’s seen her around town. Her accent sounds like she’s from the city. “What are you doing here? You’re much more handsome than the other officers here.”

“Yes, I know I am,” he says, and then he introduces himself, _Oberst_ of the best stalag in the country.

He omits that it’s a camp filled with women.

“And this is my Sergeant of the Guard, Schultz,” he says, waving a hand at him, hoping that he would get the hint to _go away._

She nods at Schultz, politely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Schultz makes a sound like he’s choking. “Hello, fräulein, whom I’ve definitely never met before in my life—”

“Ignore him.” Klink has renewed confidence and he reaches forward and touches the beauty’s hand that’s resting on the table. He feels her flinch but she quickly turns her hand over so it’s holding his and she smiles at him and _oh_ , he believes he’s a little in love.

Schultz, the bumbling fool, won’t budge but she takes control of the situation. She leans in and whispers in his ear, _let’s find a place to be alone,_ and he lets her lead him to a secluded corner of the room, drags him down to sit next to her on a sofa.

“Relax,” she tells him. She gives him a glass of brandy — his favorite, how did she know? She crosses one leg over the other. She’s wearing silk stockings. He longs to touch her. She smells good. Her perfume is familiar. He closes his eyes and tries to place it and ah, yes. It’s the same that Hogan wears. It smells rich and like spices. Delicious.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Klink tells her. He caresses her face, rubs his thumb over her cheekbone.

“Why not?” Her voice is low, and her eyes are very dark.

“You’re too good.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she says, and then she kisses him.

It surprises him — he gasps when she presses her mouth against hers. He thinks it’ll be over but it isn’t. It’s rough, biting. He falls into it, giving back. His hand on her knee, slides up and under the hem of her dress. He feels her laugh against his lips. He would think she doesn’t enjoy it if her hands weren’t running down his chest and her tongue wasn’t in his mouth.

He admits that he whimpers when she pulls from away from him. She pats his face, says, “ _Danke,_ ” and then leaves him feeling confused and with his trousers a bit too tight.

He would think he imagined it but scent of perfume is on him. The same smell of that lingers when Hogan leaves his office.

And then his drunken mind thinks: what if that was Hogan?

No. That’s nonsense. This woman was blonde and wanted to kiss him and most importantly — not in a prison camp.

He stumbles through the room, finds Schultz, tells them they have to get back to camp _immediately_.

He’s never seen Schultz move so fast to leave.

Once in the staff car, Schultz looks in the review mirror at Klink. “You have lipstick on your face, sir.”

Klink tells him to _shut up_ and then rubs away evidence of…anything.

It would not be the first time he has thought he’s seen Hogan somewhere she shouldn’t be. He knows that is impossible, because then that would mean she is a spy and that would be a very, very bad thing.

He prays Hogan is where she’s supposed to be.

When he gets to barracks two, he goes in without knocking. He hesitates before opening Hogan’s door, but then he has to know—

She’s safe in her bed, sleeping in the bottom bunk.

He stares at her for a moment, watching her sleep, but like any true soldier she’s a light sleeper and stirs. Her eyes flutter open and she sits up, the blanket falling to her lap. She was deep in sleep — her shirt is wrinkled and her hair is tousled, messy.

She squints at him. “Colonel Klink? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he replies, whispering to not wake any of the others in the room one over. “I just…I was making sure you were here.”

“Where else would I be?”

Klink shakes his head. “Forget it. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Hogan nods, says, “ _Gute Nacht,_ Klink,” and then she lies down with her back to him.

But Klink can never leave well enough alone, he comes fully into Hogan’s room and shuts the door behind him, sits in the chair at her desk. He feels awful — he drank too much, he’s so _so_ tired, and that envelope burns in his coat pocket.

“Why?”

Hogan sighs, but apparently she realizes that he needs someone to talk to, so she turns over to face him. “Why, _what_?”

“Why are things the way they are?” Klink asks.

Hogan’s expression is illuminated from the light coming through the one tiny window in the room. She scrunches her nose and has a half grin that’s brighter than the light security light outside. “Are you drunk?”

“Possibly,” Klink says, “but nevertheless, the question still remains. Why am I like this and you’re…” He gestures with his hand. “Like that? Why do we have to be enemies?”

“You know why,” she says. “Because your short man started some shit, and then we had to come over knock some sense into him and all his cronies.”

“I’m serious, Hogan.” He rests his elbows on his knees, leans in closer to her. “Both our sides think they’re right. You do what your commanding officer tells you, yes?”

She shrugs. “Usually.”

He estimates it to be more often than _usually_ , but that doesn’t matter, now.

“I like following the rules,” he says, “because then I’m less likely to make a mess of things. But there are different rules, aren’t there? Ones that are the same no matter if you’re German or American or even French.”

Hogan is silent for a moment, and then she asks, slow, measured, “What are you on about?”

“Hypothetically speaking, if I had something I was supposed to do — for instance, deliver important information to my commanding officer because it’s something that could help the war effort,” Klink says. “But there’s a part of me that questions why I’m doing this. I don’t know what the information is, but by my action could change the world. And then I think, if I happened to be on the other side, I would see myself as the enemy, and then I wonder if I am—”

“Stop thinking before you hurt yourself.” Hogan sits up, swings her legs over the side of the bed. She’s wearing long black pajama pants with pink polka dots. He would tease her about the uncharacteristic touch of femininity if he didn’t feel so terrible.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hogan says, firmly. “Your hypothetical situation would never happen. Burkhalter trusting you with important information? _Ha_.”

Klink bites the inside of his cheek. “Right.”

“And besides, you’re…don’t tell the other gals I told you this, but you aren’t like the other Krauts,” Hogan says. “You’re not evil. Just…inconvenient.”

“Thanks, I think.” He doesn’t think of how taking that as a compliment could probably be considered treason.

“You should rest,” Hogan says, lying back down herself. “Things will be better in the morning. I promise.”

He doubts it, but he trusts her anyway.

In the morning, doesn’t feel any better. If anything, he feels worse — he’s quite hung over, and his problem isn’t solved. The envelope is still in his coat pocket and Burkhalter is coming for it in the afternoon to take it directly from him.

He didn’t used to be this way. Before, he would have given it over without a thought. But then there was a very annoying American who made him think: _what if?_

Hogan walks with him after morning roll call, and then he’s on fire.

Later, he will deny he shrieked, but his coat is on _fire_ and he’s panicking too much to figure out how to take it off. Luckily, Hogan is there, and she rips the coat off of him and throws it on the ground.

They watch together as it engulfs in flames.

“I hope you had nothing important in there.” She sounds a bit too gleeful that he almost burned alive.

“I had a message for Burkhalter in there,” he says, feebly, but then he realizes: his prayers were answered. He is free.

He looks sideways to Hogan. She’s smiling. Did she do this on purpose? Did _she_ set his coat on fire—?

“He expects it from me,” Klink says, and he starts to panic again. “What do I say?”

“Spontaneous coat combustion,” she says. “It happens in every one in five hundred coats.”

“Hogan!”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not the worst thing you’ve done.” They step back as Schultz and a corporal come to extinguish what is left of the coat. Hogan says, “Besides, the General can just request it again from…whoever you got it from.”

Klink clutches her arm. “You’re right! We can’t let that happen, Hogan, _please_ —”

Please. Please do whatever it is you do when you make things _go away._

“Worry not, Kommandant,” says, calm, collected — has she ever been anything other than that? She squeezes his shoulder, whispers in his ear. “I’ll fix it, but just don’t ask how I did it.”

And then twenty minutes later, Hogan strides into his office and tosses an envelope onto his desk. It’s an exact replica of the one that he had in his coat pocket. He doesn’t question how she knew.

“Inside is a formula for cola,” she says. “But without the secret ingredient, of course.”

Klink puts it in his desk, locks the drawer. “We are never speaking of this again.”

“About what?” Hogan asks, and there’s that dangerous twinkle in her eyes, the makes Klink fear her and adore her all at once.

She makes a humming noise, and helps herself to the cigars on his desk, pockets two of them for later, and changes the subject entirely.

“You never mentioned,” she says, “how was your evening? Did you hookup with any girls?”

Klink thinks of the sexy blonde who reminded him too much of Hogan, and blushes.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Sure, lady-killer,” she says, and then she winks and clicks her tongue, gives her standard lazy salute and leaves him alone.

The war goes on. He and Hogan bicker, and occasionally they work together.

Sometimes, he hopes the war never ends so he won’t have to say goodbye to her.

He worries about her endlessly.

He finds himself reading her dossier over and over. Robin E. Hogan. Rank: Colonel. United States Army Air Force. Serial number O876707. Female. Born in 1909. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Silver Star, and many, many others. Shot down during a raid on Hamburg. Captured, interrogated, sent to Stalag 13.

The picture in the file is worn from the many times he’s touched it. It’s small and in black and white but her vibrancy shines. It’s from before he knew her, perhaps from her time in London. A portrait, in her dress uniform. Her hair is shorter than it is now and she is less world-weary, but her smile is ever the same.

He removes it from the file, and puts it in his wallet instead, hidden.

  
Anyone who visits Stalag 13 wants to see the female American colonel, so Hogan often is paraded out, forced to attend dinner with Klink and his guests. She’s usually unhappy about it, swearing _I don’t want to sit at the same table as some nazi captain_. Klink tells her, _I don’t want to either, so just do it,_ and it goes back and forth until Hogan is sitting next to him, mincing her words and glaring daggers at men across the table.

This time: she’s telling another version of the story how she earned her rank.

“I disguised myself,” she says, taking another swill of her drink. “Nobody knew I was a woman until it was too late.”

Everyone laughs — Burkhalter’s face turns alarmingly red.

“Does your military not have inspections?” Meier, a visiting Field Marshal, asks. “I don’t know how they could miss that you are a woman.”

Klink doesn’t like how he is looking at Hogan.

“The medical exam was behind a sheet,” Hogan says. “I am very good at pretending. All I had to do was stuff a sock in my briefs.”

All of them laugh again, except for Klink. Because he knows the truth. That she is _very_ good at pretending. Dangerous. He swore that he wouldn’t talk about the incident with the envelope again, but he can’t stop thinking about it. How? How is she always in the exact right place when he needs help, and how does everything go well when she’s around?

There’s a commotion outside — Hogan and Newkirk and Schultz are huddled together, giggling, and Klink just _knows_ they’re laughing about him. When he walks over, they cease their laughter and Newkirk hides something behind her back.

“We weren’t looking at anything,” says Schultz. Hogan rolls her eyes.

“I demand that you show me.” Klink waves his riding crop at them so they know that he means business. “I will put all of you in the cooler — including you, Schultz!”

Newkirk sighs. “I found this spiffy wallet and I was showin’ it to the colonel and Schultzie,” she says, and shows him.

It’s a wallet, one that looks exactly like his own. He pats his pocket. Empty.

“Give it back!” It’s unlikely that Newkirk found it — she’s a known thief and pickpocket. He holds out his hand for it. Newkirk goes to give it to him, but she gives it to Hogan instead. Klink goes to grab it but Hogan moves it out of his grasp.

“Can you prove it’s yours?” she asks.

“I don’t have to, it’s _mine_.”

Hogan makes a thoughtful noise as she starts going through it. She pulls out an identification card. “Wilhelm Klink? Are you sure that’s you?”

“Hogan! Stop this!”

“You should really be more careful with your things.” She keeps riffling through it, counting how many marks there are, and then her eyes light up. “What do you have here? Who’s this pretty fräulein?”

She holds up a picture — her own, the one from her dossier that Klink selfishly kept for himself.

His stomach drops to his feet.

“I don’t know how that got in there,” he stammers. Schultz snickers, and Klink shoots him a glare before looking back at her. “You must have put in there to tease me.”

“Me? Tease you? I would never do a thing like that.”

Klink huffs. “I don’t want it. I see enough of you as it is.”

Hogan puts a hand to her chest, as though she’s wounded.

“Do you want my photo, sir?” asks Newkirk. “I have some saucy ones that I’ve sent to boys back home.”

Klink snatches his wallet from Hogan and stomps off, leaving the photo behind. Sacrifices must be made in warfare.

But that evening, Hogan visits his private quarters. He doesn’t want to see her, but Schultz is a terrible guard and lets her in anyway.

“I have something for you,” Hogan says, although the only thing she’ll give him is a heart attack — her lips are deep red, the color of crushed cherries.

“Lipstick is against camp regulation,” he says, but Hogan just shrugs.

“For you.” She holds a picture between two fingers — hers, the one she took from him earlier that day. Klink is about to reject it, but then Hogan turns it over and presses her lips to the back, leaving a perfect, red print of her mouth.

“Something to remember me by when I escape.”

As if he could ever forget her.

Hogan pushes him to the ground before he notices the explosion.

He would say she knew it was going happen, but again — how? She is younger than him and she’s a prisoner, so her reflexes are faster. But his face is in the dirt and Hogan is on top of him and he feels the heat from flame and his ears are ringing, and he thinks, _there are worse ways I could die._

But he doesn’t die, and he misses the weight of Hogan when she climbs off him. He looks up, sees half the camp staring at him. Hochstetter is doubled over, laughing.

“Saved by a woman!” he yells, making sure everyone knows if they didn’t see it happen. “And by your prisoner, no less!”

Hogan isn’t laughing at him, at least. She holds her hand out to help him up. He brushes himself off.

“Thanks,” he mutters, and stomps off to tend his injuries — a scrape on his knee, and his very wounded ego.

What’s worse is that night, he has a dream where Hogan is on top of him in a different way. She pushes him down and she straddles him, tells him to _shut up_ when he tries to ask what’s happening, and her kisses burn like fire, leaving scorch marks on his mouth and down his throat.  
  


He goes back to the officer’s club in the hopes that he would see the blonde woman with rough kisses, but she isn’t there, and nobody knows who she is.

“It’s for the best,” Schultz says, relieved, but Klink knows that he’s just jealous.

He takes it out on Hogan, because she’s the only woman he talks to, besides occasionally his mother and his secretary, Hilda.

“All women are the same,” he says in a huff. “Devious monsters.”

“Monsters? That’s a bit harsh.” Hogan flips through his music records; there’s no use to tell her to stop, because she wouldn’t. She says: “Just because some floozy turned you down—”

“She didn’t turn me down,” he says. “She kissed me and it was very passionate.”

She gasps. “You should _never_ kiss and tell.”

“Well, I did. And she was gorgeous,” he says, and then adds, “She wore the same perfume as you.”

“Then she has good taste — except for liking you.”

“ _Humph.”_ He swears she does that on purpose. She has nothing else to amuse herself other than to tease him.

She bites down on a smile. “If it was so passionate, pray tell why you aren’t snogging her right now?”

“…She left and I haven’t seen her since.”

“Maybe you’re a bad kisser,” Hogan says, reading the back of a record and not looking up at him.

He scoffs. His immediate response is to say, _let me prove it_. “That’s not it. I worry… I worry that something happened to her.”

Hogan’s expression goes from amused to intrigued — she sets the record down, takes a seat across from Klink. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, she...” He frowns. “She seemed sad.”

Hogan makes a face that he can’t discern, like she’s faced with something she can’t figure out and wants to ask more. But she doesn’t. She leans in close to him, close enough that he could count her eyelashes.

“You want some advice?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for him to say either way. “Stop trying so hard. Just be yourself.”

Klink grimaces. “Not many people like me.”

“Then another piece of advice,” she says. _“Talk less.”_

Klink decides to take the advice, and not say what he feels.

Eventually, her luck runs out.

Hochstetter comes to the camp in the middle of the night and all but drags Hogan out of bed by her hair, shouting how he _has her this time_. Klink runs out to intercept him, but Hochstetter has an order to take her to Gestapo headquarters by any means necessary.

“She’s _mine_ now,” Hochstetter says. It feels personal. He isn’t taking any care with her — her hands are cuffed behind her back and he’s hauling her across camp by the collar of her shirt. She’s only wearing her pajamas. It’s freezing outside. He didn’t even let her get her jacket. She stumbles and Hochstetter yanks her back up, slams her against the hood of his car. She lets out a groan that Klink knows must nearly kill her. To show that weakness.

“You can’t,” Klink says. Hogan’s team gathers around him. “She isn’t—”

“Shut _up_ , Klink,” Hochstetter snarls. “I finally have the proof of what I’ve always known. That this bitch is a spy.”

Hogan’s expression is blank, her face still pressed against the car. She’s quiet. He’s never known her to be quiet.

Klink looks down. Snow is soaking through her socks.

“And when I’m done with her, I’m coming back for the others, and then _you_ ,” Hochstetter tells him. He pulls Hogan’s hair to make her stand upright, and then shoves her in the backseat. Hogan looks down, not making eye contact with him or any of her friends.

He doesn’t get to say goodbye.

“What do we do?” Klink asks, hushed, when Hochstetter’s car is out of sight.

The ladies share a glance with each other, and then look back at him.

“It’ll work out,” Kinchloe promises, and Klink believes her.

He doesn’t know how, but proof that exonerates Hogan surfaces, and names someone else to blame instead. Klink isn’t sure how POWs stuck in a camp obtained this information, but he doesn’t ask questions. All that matters is that he finds Hogan alive (he didn’t consider the alternative) and while she looks worse for wear, she smiles and asks, “What took you so long?”

Hochstetter is furious, looks like he could kill them both where they stand, but there’s nothing he can do — he kicks over a chair and shouts, _“Bah!”_ as he leaves the cell.

Klink doesn’t feel safe until he and Hogan are in the car, going the other way. He drives them back towards where he left Schultz and Newkirk; it was decided they would stay behind, just in case backup was needed.

He keeps looking in the rearview mirror to check on Hogan.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says. She has far too much mirth for someone who was being interrogated by the Gestapo less than an hour ago. Her lip is busted and it looks like she hasn’t slept since he saw her last (thirty-seven hours, he counted each one), and for once, she doesn’t smell good.

She’s wearing her uniform — Klink had had the foresight to bring it for her to change into. When they were alone in the cell, Klink had turned his back while she put it on. She left her dirty pajamas on the floor and walked out with her head held high.

“I knew you’d rescue me,” she says. “You couldn’t ruin for perfect no-escape record.”

“You didn’t escape,” he mumbles. “Hochstetter took you.”

“I know why you really came to get me,” she says, and she sits forward, resting her arms on the back of the front seat. “You _like_ me.”

Klink slams on the brake, throws the car into park, whips his head around to look at her directly. “I do _not._ ”

The accusation is more incriminating than being a traitor.

“My apologies.” A playful grin overtakes her face. “So, why did you lie to the Gestapo?”

“I didn’t lie,” he says, his voice going up an octave. Such things could not even be _thought._ He grips the steering wheel tight. “I hate Major Hochstetter. He’s irritating and he doesn’t follow protocol and I’m a higher rank than him and it wasn’t a _lie._ ”

“But what if I _were_ a spy?”

“You aren’t.” No matter how many explainable things happen, no matter how many envelopes she can make disappear, she is not a spy.

She goes _huh,_ and tilts her head. “Then you must like me.”

“I…”

That is something that he cannot deny.

He inches closer, and she does at the same time. Her breath is warm on his face. It’s then that he realizes that he’s never truly touched her, not his skin on hers. He’s always wearing gloves, or they touch each other’s arms through their clothes. But he’s never felt her. How could they have known each other for years and never touched?

She watches as he takes off a glove. He brings his hand up to her face. It’s shaking.

“Kommandant?” she asks, and then he touches her.

She doesn’t pull away, or punch him, so there’s that. In fact — she leans into the touch. She makes a soft sound in her throat and bites her bottom lip which is really _really_ distracting. He runs his thumb over the bruise on her cheek, traces the furrow in her brow with his forefinger. Studies her, learns the things that aren’t in her file.

He stops himself. He’s indulged too much. He hastily puts on his glove and puts the car into gear.

“Sit back,” he tells her, and they don’t speak again until they pick up the others.

Nothing changes after they return from Berlin. It’s as though nothing happened at all — not her being captured, not their intimate moment in the car, nothing. There had been something, an unexplainable energy between them, and he had thought—had _hoped_ that she felt it, too.

But that’s fine. It’s like not she would’ve…

He just has to get through the war. Or, maybe he’ll be put on combat duty and die and he won’t have to worry about it anymore.

But then he walks in on Hogan having sex.

With a male French lieutenant — DuBois — who Klink didn’t want to keep, but he was forced to do so. He is only supposed to stay in Stalag 13 for two days, and Klink put him in the cooler so something like this wouldn’t happen, but Hogan is there, half-naked under a sweaty Frenchman, inside the _locked_ cell, and where are the guards?

He should stop them, or maybe shoot the guy, or at least say something, but he can only _look_ —

—and then his gaze meets Hogan’s, and she laughs. Laughs!

“Don’t you knock?” Hogan asks, _moans_ , and Klink escapes, away.

He stands outside, waiting. He’s thankful for the bitter cold air because it takes his mind off other things.

Over half an hour later, Hogan comes out with a swagger, looking obviously very satisfied, and smoking a cigarette.

“Disgusting,” Klink says, and starts towards his office; Hogan follows.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” she says, keeping in step with him. “It’s natural.”

“You aren’t married,” he says through gritted teeth. “Promiscuous Americans.”

“Oh, c’mon, Kommandant. Be open-minded.”

“No.” Klink flings open the door, doesn’t care if he hits her with it. But he hears her footsteps behind him. She follows him into his office, persistent. He sits at his desk and tries to busy himself, looks at papers. There are always so many papers. Hogan flops down on the desk, right on his very important paperwork.

“I was _bored_.” Hogan puts out her cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. “I had to amuse myself.”

Klink huffs. “You’re a prisoner. You aren’t supposed to have _fun._ Does the Geneva Convention say I must provide you with a bed partner?”

“That would be thoughtful, thank you. While I’m making requests, I would also like another slice of bread a day, as well as pens with blue ink.”

Klink sighs. “Didn’t you think you’d get caught?”

Hogan shrugs. “I needed it.”

“Needed?”

“Don’t you get frustrated?”

“Frustrated?”

“You know...” She leans in closer, whispers, “ _Sexually.”_

Klink lets out a squeak, covers his mouth.

Hogan aims to kill him. She really does.

“We Americans have a word for that — horny.” Hogan nudges his knee with her foot. “Are you horny, sir?”

“No,” he lies. He very much is, and he wants her. He wants her in any way he could. To have her bent over his desk, or at least to kiss, to touch. “Never.”

“Shame.” She hops off his desk, salutes him. “Good night.”

He makes a sound of disagreement, because he knows he’s going to have a _terrible_ night, and it’s all her fault.

The next day, he sends away her boyfriend lieutenant a day early, but she just shrugs and goes, _eh._ He doesn’t tell her when Dubois manages to escape once he was four kilometers outside of camp. She might try to rendezvous with him.

It doesn’t make her angry, which makes him angry, which just amuses her. She ups the ante, retaliates. She does things that don’t benefit her at all, and are only to irritate him. Such as: rearranges all the furniture in his office so everything is a few inches to the right, scuffs up his boots, and she’s willfully disobedient, talks back and is rude.

He would lock her in the cooler, but he knows it wouldn’t be punishment for her since she can clearly come and go from there as she pleases. But he doesn’t think there is anything that could punish her. She’s already lost the one thing that she desires most: freedom.

He dreams that Hogan was at his side during the Great War. She’s wearing a German uniform, carries a rifle and has a saber at her hip, and she’s an _Oberst_ and he’s only a lowly private. They’re down in the trenches together, trying not to suffocate on smoke and poison gas, keeping each other warm in the night. She speaks fluent German to him — _hast du Angst?_

_Are you afraid?_

Yes. Always.

There’s dirt and blood on her face and she smells like sweat and fear and the world feels like it’s ending but—

—she still smiles.

He can’t look at her the next day. She makes him feel every emotion he knows: anger, shame, joy, admiration.

It’s far too much.

Unintended consequence: being ignored bothers Hogan.

Finally! He’s found her weakness. She tries to provoke him at roll call, but he pretends as though he doesn’t hear her and he dismisses the prisoners and goes back to work. Hogan trails behind him like a small child, repeating his name, saying anything she can think of to get him to talk to her. She hates it — he knows her well enough to know this. Feels the anger brewing off of her. She isn’t used to being ignored.

He shuts the door to his office in her face.

He locks himself in his office, forbids Hogan to enter for the day. He has to close the curtain because then Hogan keeps walking by his window and glaring at him.

He goes to his quarters and has dinner alone.

He admits his day was very dull, but at least he didn’t have to confront Hogan.

Or so he thought — she’s there, in his sitting room, sprawled on his sofa.

“How did you get in here?” Klink looks around; it’s only her. “I didn’t hear the door open.”

She stands, faces him, crosses her arms. “Why are you avoiding me?” she counters, and ah, yes, she is very angry.

“Everything isn’t about you.” He can’t even make it sound halfway convincing. He tries again anyway. “I hardly noticed you today.”

She comes at him fast — he flinches, thinking she might attack him, but she only (only) comes nose to nose to him.

He forgets how tall she is, with how much she slouches.

“What game are you playing at?” she asks.

“The same as you, my dear colonel.” It’s dangerous. She’s dangerous. What he knows about her worries him, and what he doesn’t know worries him more.

Momentarily, it looks as though she wants to shoot him, but then she laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’re such an idiot,” she says, “ _dummkopf_ ,” and then she grasps the lapels of his jacket, and puts her mouth on his.

 _I’m dreaming_ , he thinks, but it can’t be — she isn’t like the Hogan in his dreams. She’s more lax about it than the way he imagined it — he always thought she would be would violent, or passionate. But she kisses him easy, slow, thorough.

“What are you doing?” He thinks that she’s making a fool of him, teasing him.

“Don’t you know?” she asks, mumbled. She doesn’t seem much interested in talking.

“Why are you doing it?”

She makes a frustrated noise in her throat, bites his bottom lip. “ _Please_ don’t make me explain.”

Even though it’s something he’s been wanting for the better part of two years, he can’t let himself. He shouldn’t for so many reasons — because he is her jailer, because she’s most likely using him, because there’s a _war._

“We both knew this was going to happen,” she says, and her hands are now at his waist. “You’ve wanted this.”

“You don’t—”

“I would never do something I don’t want to do. You know me better than that.”

He does.

He isn’t really sure what to do. She knocks off his hat and then throws her own to the side, takes off his jacket, and it’s becoming very real, now. He tries to reciprocate — he gets her jacket off but he gets stuck at her pants. He’s never had to take off a belt other than his own and it’s very confusing. She sighs at his incompetence, shoves his hands aside and undoes her belt, and then his.

“Bedroom,” she says. A command, not a question. She guides him in that direction, walking him backwards into it while ripping his shirt from where its neatly tucked. He’s briefly tangled in his suspenders. She laughs at him but it doesn’t feel the as same as usual. She saves him from them, and he’s fine until he struggles with his boots. She make a comment about how his kind are too much flash and don’t have enough practicality, and that’s why his side is going to lose the—

“Hush.” He doesn’t want to be reminded of what brought them together here, at the same place.

“Now you’re getting it.”

They briefly fight when they lie down — his bed is way, way too small for two people. Hogan is stronger, more aggressive, and she wins, straddling his hips and pinning him down. Not that he minds. She’s completely bare, except for her dog tags around her neck. They rest against her chest. She sees that he is looking there, at her. She touches him, slow strokes. He whines, arches into her hand.

“Don’t finish in me,” she says.

He misses the meaning. “What?”

“Don’t come inside me,” she says, and that time he understands but he can’t figure out how to speak, so she continues in more specific English, “When you need to ejaculate—”

“Yes, alright,” he says, cutting her off, because if she keeps talking like that it’s going to be over before it even starts.

“Good,” she replies, and then she grips him right and lowers herself on him.

She isn’t at all passive — she takes what she wants, grinding, rolling her hips, and he can’t help but gasp aloud. She shushes him, says, “Be careful, someone might hear,” and that bit of danger makes him want it even more. He thrusts up, meeting her halfway, and she makes a sound that he’s never going to forget the rest of his life. He searches her face, looking to see how she feels, if she’s enjoying it, or merely tolerating it. She seems to be liking it, but she isn’t really looking at him. So, he wraps his arms around her, pulls her down, kisses her softly at her neck. She tenses at first, and then he kisses her again, and she relaxes. Allows herself. He runs his hand down her back, holds onto her as her body shudders against his.

It’s then he knows she’s the one who has him captured.

He feels warmth inside him and he grabs at her thigh and makes panicked noises; thankfully she understands and moves in time for him to spill on himself.

She lies shoulder-to-shoulder with him, after. They don’t speak. He looks to his side at her, and she looks a little mad — frustrated.

“May I?” he asks, placing his hand on her. She makes grumbled noise of affirmation and spreads her thighs apart enough for him to slide his fingers inside. She’s very wet and he feels her pulse, and that with his thumb rubbing at her, a pleasure sound escapes — she bites down on it quick and flushes red, like she is embarrassed. That gives him some bravery and he touches her in the same way, more, harder, and he has to cover her mouth his other hand to keep her quiet.

She blinks at him. He doesn’t look away from her, because he knows this is probably the only time it’ll happen. It isn’t sure about tomorrow — she could escape and he’d never see her again, or a bomb could level the camp and kill everyone.

She’s still trembling and breathing hard when she pushes away from him and stands.

“I’m using your shower,” she announces. He thinks of commanding his authority over her, but that makes him feel a little sick and he doesn’t _want_ to, so he ends up lying in his bed, listening to the shower run, and hoping she doesn’t use up his weekly ration of hot water.

He wipes himself down and puts on pajamas, and then adds a robe because he’s suddenly fearful of assuming too much. He sits on the couch and drinks because he doesn’t know what else to do other than wait for her. Over half and hour passes and he thinks maybe she escaped out a window, or gone the way she got inside in the first place, but then she comes and sits next to him.

She had put her uniform back on, sans hat; it’s in her hands, clutched. Her hair is still wet; a trail of water drips down her neck. She stares at the floor.

Klink knows that look: regret.

He gestures to a glass on the table. “For you,” he says.

She takes it and swallows it in one go.

“We can’t tell anyone, of course,” he says, quietly.

She barks out a laugh. “Why in the hell would I tell anyone?”

She asks it like it was the worst thing in the world.

“I could lose my position if it was known I had relations with a prisoner,” he stresses. “I would get in _so_ much trouble.”

“I don’t care about _you_ ,” she snaps. “I would lose everything. My rank, respect — hell, I would probably be executed. I’ve read about what they’ve done to women who lay with the enemy. I’m not going to risk letting people know I fucked a nazi.”

“I’m _not_ a nazi.” He says it a bit too loud, and looks around, as though someone could have overheard him. Then quieter: “You know I’m not.”

“Yeah, I know.” She runs a hand through her hair, mussing it up. “Listen. It wasn’t terrible.”

“Oh?”

“But it’s never gonna going to happen again.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t expect more.

She stands, adjusts her clothes. “I’ll be going now.”

“Going…?” His heartbeat speeds up. “Where?”

“Back to my barracks.” She gives him a slow, sly smile. “You know I’m not going to escape.”

“How will you get back without being seen? It’s past curfew.”

“Just go to your bedroom, and then I’ll take care of the rest,” she says, and she pats his face. “I won’t get caught. I never do.”

He lies in the unmade bed that still smells like her. He knows he shouldn’t but he’s curious — he goes back and peeks in the sitting room, but Hogan is gone, like smoke.

Klink thought he wouldn’t be able to look at Hogan without accidentally letting it slip that they had sex, or without making a fool of himself. He thinks she expects it from him. As soon as they see each other at roll call, she gives him a sharp look, one like, _don’t you dare._

Little does she know that he is capable of doing something correctly. She just focuses too much on the negative.

But everything goes fine. All prisoners are present and accounted for, and Hogan isn’t awkward with him.

She nods, addressing him, “Colonel Klink.”

“Colonel Hogan,” he replies, and they salute each other and he dismisses her.

Schultz follows him back to his office, uninvited.

“What do you want?” Klink asks, flatly, because the oaf wants to say something. He’s nearing rocking on his heels, excited like a young boy.

Schultz waggles his brows. “You got laid last night.”

He collapses into his chair.

“That’s none of your business,” Klink says. “Stop with the nonsense Americanisms.”

“But you did, yes?” Schultz lowers his voice. “Perhaps with an American colonel?”

“That—that’s not, I have never—” If Schultz knows, then everyone knows.

“I know when I am right,” Schultz says, his chest puffing out, proud. “I know when a man and woman have been _together._ I knew it was going to happen eventually between you and Colonel Hogan. I’ve seen you looking—”

“I’ve seen nothing.”

“—and Colonel Hogan was very odd and moody this morning.”

“She was?” He shakes his head. “Nothing happened. And besides, what about you and LeBeau? You’re awfully cozy with her.”

Schultz gasps. “I’ve only had her strudel.”

“Don’t be nasty, Schultz.”

“I’m not, I _swear_ it. She makes me treats and I help her, you know—”

The two decide to drop the topics — they will not talk about Schultz’s susceptibility to bribery if they don’t talk about Klink’s _thing_ with Hogan.

And then Hogan is lying in his bed that evening.

“I have one rule,” she says, as she undresses him. “Don’t make a big deal out of this.”

He would agree to anything to touch her again.

She lets him be on top this time. It feels more like fighting than anything else — her breath is ragged in his ear and she leaves bruises on his arms and a bite mark on his shoulder. Complains when she wants to be touched more.

She drinks his liquor afterward, and they talk about their day.

They do not talk about their arrangement.

But she comes to his quarters the next night, and the next. It becomes so frequent that it’s almost every night. When she doesn’t creep into his room, he figures that she’s out doing something else she shouldn’t be doing. He knows she’s only sleeping with him because she doesn’t have better options — the other men in camp aren’t as attractive as he is, and more so, they have a history. They understand each other. He thinks they have more alike than they have different. They’re the same rank, they’re both fliers, they both like the finer things in life, they both want the war to be over—

Nothing else really changes. They still bicker daily and Hogan does her best to dismantle the camp, and Germany itself. However, their arguments are much better when they settle their differences later, alone, privately.

There are more things he could add to her dossier. The shape of the birthmark on her hip, her love for chocolate, the pattern of crow’s feet at her eyes.

He’s pretty sure only Schultz knows (although he’s never confirmed it with him). To anyone else it would be unbelievable, and he’s sure Hogan’s fellows would have had a coup d’état if they knew she was sharing a bed with their kommandant.

He doesn’t think about what will happen after the war. He doesn’t think about how the best-case scenario is for Germany to lose and for the Allies liberate the camp. Best-case scenario is that Hogan is freed, and she has enough compassion to put in a good word for him.

“It couldn’t have been me,” Hogan says, her voice soft, innocent. “I was with Colonel Klink last night. We played chess and talked about planes until late in the evening.”

She and Burkhalter look to Klink. He tries to keep his face neutral.

It’s a half-truth. They did talk about planes, but that was after she woke him up by crawling through his bedroom window, and if _playing chess_ means him taking her from behind and then putting his face between her legs.

“Colonel Hogan was with you last night at ten in the evening?” Burkhalter asks him.

“Yes, _Herr General_.”

He holds his breath.

“Then, never mind,” Burkhalter says, sighing. “I had my doubts, anyway. You wouldn’t be capable of conducing such a violent act.”

Hogan smiles. “Of course. I’m only a colonel because I helped raise the Air Force’s mascot, Edward the Eagle.”

Another lie.

When Burkhalter leaves, Hogan flops into the chair in front of Klink’s desk, takes a cigar without asking.

“The general said someone who matched your description was seen running from a scene where ten SS officers were shot,” Klink says.

“Golly.” Hogan holds her hand out; he hands her his lighter. “That sounds awfully grizzly.”

Klink thinks of the night previous, where she smelled like the woods, and gunpowder.

“Hogan,” he says, whispering. “It was past midnight when you—”

“Your clock must have been wrong.”

“Yes,” he says. “You’re right.”

  
  


_“Wach auf.”_

“Not now, Hogan,” he tells her, and he’s about to go back to sleep when he realizes it’s not right — she’s speaking German, it’s much too cold, and when he opens his eyes he sees the sky.

A dream. They’re in the war together — he doesn’t know which one, they’re all the same.

“ _Los_ ,” she whispers in his ear. “Come on.”

“Where?”

She points across a field, to a plane. She grabs his arm, tugs. “ _Los._ We can escape. _”_

“We can’t,” he tells her. “We’ll be shot.”

“Coward,” she says, and the last thing he sees is the disappointment heavy in her eyes. He changes his mind — he wants to go with her — but it’s too late. She leaves him, and she climbs into the plane, starts up the engine, and flies away.  
  
  


He wakes up alone.

It’s real, not a dream — he stares at the drab walls of his bedroom, and has that overall sense of dread. He vaguely remembers falling asleep while Hogan was telling him a story about stealing a German fighter plane—

He thinks she had snuck out (again) and he turns over to the warm place where she had been, but then there’s a sound in the other room.

It’s only Hogan, as he expected. She doesn’t sleep much, she’s restless and always has something to do. She’s dressed in one of his robes and going through a stack of paperwork he brought from his office to look over that evening, until Hogan came over and distracted him. She looks up, acknowledges him standing there, but goes back to inspecting a map.

“What are you doing?” Klink asks.

“Some light reading.” Being caught red-handed doesn’t even faze her. “Can I borrow this? I’ll give it back tomorrow.”

“You have some nerve,” Klink says. “What makes you think I would say yes?”

“Well, you left it out. I thought maybe you left it out for me, as a present.”

Klink snatches the map out of her hands. She pouts. He tries not to be wooed by her.

“I think you knew I had them, and planned to wait until I fell asleep to sneak in here and steal them.” He stomps his foot. “You’re using our relationship to take advantage of me.”

Hogan cringes at the word _relationship._

“I took things from you before we were fucking,” she says, and he still blushes at that word, _fuck_ — it’s so filthy, but she says it with no hesitation. “I wouldn’t fuck you for weeks just to get information.”

He tosses the map back on the table.

“Then why are you?” he asks. It’s the question he hasn’t dared to ask, but he has to know. “You don’t even like me.”

She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m not supposed to.”

“I’m sorry.” For some reason, it feels like he needs to apologize, but she shakes her head.

“I do, and have used you,” she says. “You’re collateral damage, I suppose. I didn’t feel bad about it because you’re the enemy. You made it easy to not like you. You’re a narcissist and really dumb.”

It’s not nearly the worst things he’s ever been called, but it hurts more, coming from Hogan. “Well, then.”

“But you can be really kind,” she continues, “and you do the right thing when it matters.” She swears. “I hate it, but I like you.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

He tries to contain his happiness. “Since when?”

“Oklahoma.” She smiles. “That was when you first surprised me. You gave me that silly flower and got all bothered about it. But when I really started to come around was when you met with that blonde woman at the officer’s club — the night you got the information from the scientist.”

“What about it?”

She grins, that one where she thinks she’s the smartest person alive. “That was me.”

“…the scientist?”

“The _woman_.”

It all makes sense now — he thought she was familiar, those eyes, and the perfume—

“How?” he asks, and then: “You kissed me! You—”

“My original plan wasn’t working. I had to improvise.”

“You looked so different! Was that a wig? You spoke German as well as a native, and you were wearing a _dress_ —”

“You said I was too _good_ to be there, around all those nazis,” she says, “and then you came back to camp to talk to me, and you were so conflicted about the information you had. That’s when I realized that despite everything, I was…fond of you.”

“Why?”

“Because you were questioning things,” she said. “You were terrified, but you did the right thing.” She pats his leg. “So that’s why I got rid of that envelope of information for you.”

“I _knew_ you set my coat on fire.”

She shrugs. “Even though I already had the original one — I switched it out at the officer’s club with some slight of hand.”

Tricked, again.

“You are diabolical.”

“I try,” she says, proud.

He isn’t sure what to say about this revelation. None of it is really surprising. He’s known that there is more to Hogan than she lets on. He could arrest her for this. But she must trust him — or she knows that she could destroy him if he tried.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I shouldn’t want you,” she says, quiet.

“Want me?”

“Stop making this so difficult,” and she kisses him, silent.

The next morning, Hogan is gone.

“She escaped,” says Schultz. It looks like he’s going to either vomit, or cry.

Even Hogan’s ragtag group doesn’t know where she has gone — and he doesn’t think they’re lying, this time.

He won’t let her ruin his perfect no-escape record, he won’t let her _run away._ She’s supposed to be the brave one.

He goes looking for her, alone. He searches for her all day long. He isn’t sure where she could be — he looks in every restaurant he passes, stops at every bridge, asks if others have seen her. He worries that maybe she got picked up by the Gestapo, but no, she is better than that. He calls camp every time he has access to a phone to see if she’s returned, but she hasn’t. It’s as though she’s vanished without a trace.

There’s so much he should have told her. I’m sorry for not figuring it out sooner. I’m sorry for being a fool. I’m sorry for not trying harder.

Just about when he’s about to give up and accept that she is really gone, he finds her. Wearing civilian clothes, sitting cross-legged in the grass on top of a hill.

Klink parks his car and hikes up the slope. She briefly looks up at him, but then returns her gaze out ahead. She doesn’t tell him to go away, so he takes a seat next to her, and looks at the meadow in front of them in the valley of the other side of the hill.

It’ll be spring soon. There are tiny dots of color, flowers beginning to grow.

“It’s good to see there are some places left untouched by the war,” he says.

She makes a noise of — humor? grief?

“How did you find me?” she asks.

“Luck.” He nudges her shoulder. “Why didn’t you leave? You could have been halfway to London by now.”

“I have nothing better to do.” She picks up a piece of grass, lets it blow away in the wind. Then, serious: “I can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

She turns to him, and he’s never seen look so clear.

“Don’t lie,” she says. “You know the truth, don’t you? That I’m a —”

“Yes.” He knows. She’s a spy. He’s known for a very, very long time.

“Do you have any questions?”

He shakes his head. “I think the less I know the better. I’ll continue to look the other way when you are late to roll call, and I’ll leave out maps with troop movements for you to peruse.”

She nods. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you like you’re one of my own.”

Her own.

“You can tell me everything when it’s all over,” he says. “But I do want to know one thing. How did you become a colonel?”

She’s quiet for a long time, and he thinks she’s concocting another nonsense story, but she just shrugs and says, “I earned it.”

Of course.

“Hogan,” he says, “I was thinking, after the war, would you—”

“ _No,_ ” she says, harsh, too fast. “I told you. I’m married to my career.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that.” He hasn’t even thought of _that_ , but now he has and—

“I was going to ask,” he says, starting again, “after the war, would you go flying with me?”

Just her and him and the air.

“Sure,” she says, giving a future to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> \- This was difficult to write with it being from Klink's perspective, where all the hijinks were happening and he had to be clueless about it, but also enough for the reader to know what's going on without telling. I've been working on writing and not _telling_.  
> \- Oklahoma! was first performed in America in 1943. Would it be possible for Klink to know about it that soon? Possibly; maybe not. The timeline for the show is all over the place anyway, so. I thought it was funny. (Trying to not let the mild anachronism bother me.)  
> \- Hogan’s speech near the end, about why she doesn’t like him is based off of The Office when Jan is telling Michael why they shouldn’t be together.  
> \- The random mood shifts are because I wrote this at two very different times in my life. Yikes. I have improved a lot in skill, but my style/mood changed somewhat. But I moved it around enough that maybe it works with it?  
> \- There were a lot of other plot points I wanted to include, but you know what they say - kill your darlings :/  
> \- title is from the saying, of course: all’s fair in love and war  
> \- I'm sorry if my translation of German words are bad, I tried.


End file.
